Late afternoon Beaune sweltered in 37°C – long live aircon I say, having travelled 4 hours from Bern!

Despite this week’s similarity to 2015, this time last year the Côte d’Or whites had already been largely harvested, fewer growers were in the reds, but the equivalent of next week was (red) D-Day for most producers. This year, I don’t expect much to happen before the 20th September, maybe closer to the 26th…

But what are they going to pick? The Côte de Nuits is not THAT bad, but I spoke to David Croix today, who this week was back from two weeks of holiday. “Well, we did quite the most thorough evaluation of the grapes in the Domaine des Croix vineyards that I’ve ever done, it it doesn’t look good. The average was less than one cluster per vine – about 2-3 hectolitres per hectare. I might be a little out and could be surprised and get 5 – but I won’t be getting 15. And we thought that 2012-2015 was bad! Okay this year we pruned late and had a lot of weeds in the vines – that seemed to exacerbate the effect of the frost. I might make 10 barrels this year” How many do you usually make? – was the obvious question – “oh, about 100…”

On that note, maybe it’s better to concentrate on the pretty sky this evening!

Ah but the problem with the previous comment are the words Australian and New Zealand. I’m sure lovely in their own way, but not Burgundy.

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